Eect of homogenizing pressure and sterilizing condition on quality of canned high fat coconut milk

Naphaporn Chiewchan *, Chanthima Phungamngoen, Suwit Siriwattanayothin

Department of Food Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology, Thonburi, Tungkru, Bangkok 10140, Thailand

Abstract The eect of homogenizing pressure (1527 MPa) and commercial sterilizing condition (109.3121.1 C under pressure of 515 psi) on the quality of canned high fat (30%) coconut milk was investigated. All heat-treated homogenized samples exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with ow behavior index (n) between 0.719 and 0.971. At similar sterilizing condition, a decrease in n value and an increase in consistency index (K) were observed for samples passing higher homogenizing pressures. A reduction in apparent viscosity was found for the homogenized samples undergoing higher sterilizing temperatures. For color determination, Hunter L/b values of homogenized coconut milk were greater than that for fresh sample and the values increased with increasing pressures. The reduction in L/b values was observed when the homogenized samples were subjected to heat treatment. Sterilizing at 121.1 C for 60 min could provide an acceptable color comparing to fresh coconut milk while heating at lower temperature but for longer time permitted more browning reaction and resulted in an increase of b value. Overall, the results suggested that quality of canned high fat coconut milk in terms of rheological and optical properties was inuenced by both homogenizing pressure and sterilizing condition.

Keywords: Coconut milk; Color; Homogenizing pressure; Sterilizing temperature; Rheological properties

1. Introduction Coconut milk is a milky white oil-in-water emulsion extracted from coconut esh. It plays an important role in many traditional foods of Asian and Pacic regions. Separation of an emulsion into an aqueous phase and cream phase commonly occurs and leads to an unacceptably physical defect of either fresh or processed coconut milk. Canning has been found to be a suitable process for preservation of coconut milk. The process starts from extracting the milk from grated coconut meat with or without added water. The percentage of fat is adjusted before heating at pasteurization temperature. The milk is then added with a stabilizer or

emulsier and pass through the homogenizer. Finally, it was lled in can and sterilized in the retort. Previous research works have demonstrated that fat particle size, dispersion and temperature had signicant eects on a stability of foods containing high fat content such as milk, yogurt and cheese (Shaker, Jumah, & Jdayil, 2000; Xu, Nikolov, Wasan, Gonsalves, & Borwankar, 1998). For typical canned coconut milk process, the addition of suitable emulsiers and homogenization for reducing fat globule size are required prior to heat treatment to retain the emulsion stability. Sringam (1986) reported that type and quality of emulsier and homogenization aected the stability of coconut milk. Increasing homogenizing pressure from 1000 to 5000 psi resulted in increasing stability of coconut milk and two-stage homogenization at 1000 and 2000 psi resulted in greater stability of coconut milk

than single-stage high pressure (5000 psi) homogenization (Gonzalez, de Leon, & Sanchez, 1990). Adding sodium caseinate and stearoyl lactylate (0.52.5% of coconut milk) coupled with two-stage homogenization could enhance the stability. Processing temperature also has signicant eect on the stability of coconut milk. Vitali, Soler, and Rao (1985) studied the eect of temperature (1550 C) and total solids (36.951.6%) on the ow properties of coconut milk. It was found that coconut milk exhibited midly pseudoplastic behavior. Simuang, Chiewchan, and Tansakul (2004) examined the eects of temperature (7090 C) and fat content (1530%) on the rheological properties of coconut milk. Their nding was similar to the work of Vitali et al. (1985) which all samples exhibited pseudoplastic behavior. They stated that fat concentration resulted in an increase in consistency index (K). Furthermore, the previous research work demonstrated that more aggregates of fat globule were clearly observed at higher heating temperatures (Simuang et al., 2004). This resulted in the reduction of K values which implied the decrease of the coconut milk stability. From literature described above, homogenizing pressure and temperature were signicant parameters aecting the stability of the emulsion. This research was aimed to investigate the eect of homogenizing pressure in the pressure range of 1527 MPa (11/423/4 MPa) and commercial sterilizing condition, (109.3121.1 C under pressure of 515 psi) on the stability of canned high fat coconut milk (30%). The information obtained from the study could be used as a guideline for developing of high fat coconut milk canning process.

Table 1 Process time for sterilizing high fat canned coconut milk Pressure (psi) 5 10 15 Temperature (C) 109.3 115.6 121.1 Come up time (min) 15 15 15 Process time (min) 160 110 60 F0a (min) 5 5 5

a The time in min at 121.1 C that will produce the same degree of sterilization as the given process at its temperature T.

2. Materials and methods 2.1. Coconut milk preparation Fresh coconut milk without added water from a local market was stored at room temperature and passed through the cloth lter before experiments. The initial fat content of coconut milk (3537%) was determined by RoseGottlieb method (AOAC, 1990) and then diluted to the fat concentration of 30% w/v by distilled water. 0.6% (w/v) Montanox 60 (Polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monostearate) and 0.6% (w/v) CMC were added while the sample was heating and stirring continuously on a hot plate (Framo Geratetechnik Model M21/1, Germany). The sample was held on a hot plate for 1 min once its temperature reached 70 C to inhibit lipase and microbial growth. The prepared sample was passed through a two-stage homogenizer (GEA Model NS200 6L, Italy) at dierent pressure levels, i.e. 11, 14, 17, 20 and 23 MPa for the rst stage and followed by 4 MPa for the second stage. The homogenized sample was then lled in a can (can size 300 407, 15 oz.) and

Fig. 1. The change in apparent viscosity of high fat coconut milk after sterilization: (a) 30 C (non-heat sample), (b) 109.3 C, (c) 115.6 C and (d) 121.1 C.

sterilized using a horizontal still retort. The thermal process conditions are shown in Table 1. 2.2. Rheological measurement The rheological measurements were carried out using a rotational concentric cylinder viscometer (HAAKE Model VT500, Germany) with NV type measuring system. Shear rate was increased from 0 to 300 s1 in 2 min. The temperature of samples was maintained at room temperature (about 30 C) during the measurements. 2.3. Microscopic study A few drops of oleoresin dye were added to 10 ml of coconut milk sample and subsequently stirred for at least 1 min to disperse the dye. A few drops of the sample were transferred to the slide and a cover slip was placed over the sample. An optical standard microscope (Olympus Model CH30, Japan) was used to determine the fat structure at a magnication of 400 (before thermal process) or a magnication of 100 (after thermal processing) and photographs were taken from typical elds. 2.4. Determination of fat globule size distribution The diractometer (Malvern Instrument Model Mastersizer-S, UK) equipped with a 3 RF lens and an

HeNe laser (k = 633 nm) was used to determine size distribution of fat globules of coconut milk. The sterilized samples were diluted to approximately 1/1000 with deionized water before measuring. Size distribution histograms are presented in volume of fat particle (%) against droplet diameter (in the range of 0.05900 lm). The measurements were conducted three times for each samples. 2.5. Color measurement Color of coconut milk was analyzed by measuring the reectance using a spectrocolorimeter (Juki Model JP7100, Japan). 2 North skylight was used as the light source. The instrument was calibrated against a standard white reference tile (L = 91.66, a = 0.12, b = 1.37). A glass cell (30 mm diameter) containing the sample was placed above the light source and covered with the lid. Although, three Hunter parameters, namely L (lightness), a (greenness and redness) and b (blueness and yellowness) were recorded, only L and b values were required to describe the change in color. 2.6. Experimental design and data analysis The experiments were conducted for ve levels of homogenizing pressure (11/4, 14/4, 17/4, 20/4 and 23/4 MPa) and three levels of sterilizing temperature (109.3, 115.6 and 121.1 C). A 2-factor factorial design was used in scheduling of the experiments. The results

Table 2 Eect of homogenization pressure and sterilizing temperature on consistency index (K) and ow behavior index (n) Temperature (C) 30 Homogenization pressure (MPa) Non homogenization 15 (11/4) 18 (14/4) 21 (17/4) 24 (20/4) 27 (23/4) 15 18 21 24 27 15 18 21 24 27 15 18 21 24 27 (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) K (Pa sn) 3.62 102 5.81 102 6.62 102 9.34 102 10.42 102 14.56 102 3.95 102 4.97 102 5.64 102 7.15 102 8.45 102 2.32 102 3.46 102 3.61 102 4.18 102 4.58 102 2.02 102 2.56 102 2.82 102 2.78 102 3.13 102 n 0.971 0.858 0.806 0.759 0.740 0.719 0.926 0.904 0.883 0.852 0.810 0.949 0.911 0.892 0.863 0.822 0.959 0.913 0.894 0.869 0.823 r2 0.992 0.968 0.979 0.964 0.977 0.954 0.981 0.981 0.987 0.983 0.982 0.984 0.982 0.984 0.985 0.958 0.988 0.984 0.975 0.977 0.981

Table 3 Apparent viscosity at 300 s1 for high fat coconut milk at dierent homogenization pressures and sterilizing temperatures Temperature (C) 30 Homogenization pressure (MPa) Non homogenization 15 (11/4) 18 (14/4) 21 (17/4) 24 (20/4) 27 (23/4) 15 18 21 24 27 15 18 21 24 27 15 18 21 24 27 (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) Apparent viscosity (ga; Pa s) 1.54 102 2.71 102 2.80 102 3.10 102 3.55 102 4.55 102 1.85 102 2.27 102 2.38 102 2.70 102 2.94 102 1.32 102 2.05 102 2.27 102 2.47 102 2.66 102 1.20 102 1.43 102 1.58 102 1.78 102 1.96 102

109.3

109.3

115.6

115.6

121.1

121.1

were reported as an average of three replicates. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the two factors and interactions were applied to the dierent sets of data with a signicant level of 0.05 (a = 0.05).

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Rheological properties The plot of apparent viscosity against shear rate of coconut milk homogenized at ve pressure levels before and after sterilizing are shown in Fig. 1. The rheograms obtained were similar for all conditions. Power law model was applied to describe the rheological behavior of the samples. _ s K cn 1

_ where s is the shear stress, c is the shear rate, K is the consistency index (Pa sn) and n is the ow behavior index. The excellent ts were obtained with high correlation coecients (r2 = 0.9540.992). The values of K and n are shown in Table 2. It was revealed that all samples exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with the ow behavior index (n) between 0.719 and 0.971. It was found that the apparent viscosity decreased with increasing shear rate during the early period of measurement. After a sharp reduction, the apparent viscosity changed slightly and became steady at higher shear rates. As coconut milk is a colloidal system containing fat globules dispersed in water phase, the fat particles may rearrange themselves into parallel direction with shear force and fat globule aggregates may break into smaller ones by shear force. These particles could ow easily as a result of resistance arising from particleparticle interaction

Fig. 2. Micrographs (400 magnication) of high fat coconut milk samples passing dierent homogenization pressures: (a) non-homogenization, (b) 11/4 MPa, (c) 14/4 MPa, (d) 17/4 MPa, (e) 20/4 MPa and (f) 23/4 MPa.

which decreased viscosity (Charm, 1962). When the aggregates were completely disrupted, further increase in shear rate did not aect the apparent viscosity (Campanella, Dorward, & Singh, 1995). At the same temperature, a decrease in n value and an increase in K value were obtained for the samples passing higher homogenizing pressures. The increase in pressure level permitted the size reduction. This meant that higher numbers of droplet were presented in the colloidal system and obstructed the ow. Therefore, an

increase in pressure caused an increase in apparent viscosity and the more pseudoplasticity. Thermal processing also had signicant eect on the viscosity of coconut milk. A reduction in apparent viscosity of coconut milk was observed with increasing sterilizing temperature. Table 3 shows the values of apparent viscosity (g) at maximum shear rate (300 s1). It was found that the emulsions were more viscous after passing higher pressures. From the results, coconut milk exhibited a power-law pseudoplastic behavior, characterized by n values less than 1 at all homogenizing pressures and sterilizing temperatures. Experimental results have shown that passing the coconut milk through a homogenizer
100 90

Volume of particle (%)

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0.1 1 10 100

(a)
1000

Particle diameter (um)

100 90

Volume of particle (%)

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0.1 1 10 100

(b)
1000

Particle diameter (um)

100 80 60 40 20

Volume of particle (%)

(c)
0 0.1 1 10 100 1000

Particle diameter (um)

Fig. 3. Micrographs (100 magnication) of coconut milk samples at homogenization pressure 23/4 MPa with dierent sterilizing temperatures: (a) 109.3 C, (b) 115.6 C and (c) 121.1 C.

Fig. 4. Eect of sterilizing temperatures: (a) 109.3 C, (b) 115.6 C, (c) 121.1 C on droplet size distribution at dierent homogenizing pressures: 11/4 MPa (s), 14/4 MPa (), 17/4 MPa (n), 20/4 MPa (j) and 23/4 MPa ().

was accompanied with an increase in pseudoplasticity and was shown by a decrease in values of ow behavior index (n). This observation was consistent with the work of Floury, Desrumaux, and Legrand (2002). They reported that the emulsion obtained at low homogenizing pressure show Newtonian ow behavior with quite low viscosity because there was no interaction between particles. As homogenizing pressure increased, apparent viscosity of the emulsion increased, with a strong shift of the uid from a Newtonian to pseudoplastic behavior, indicative of resistance arising from particleparticle interaction in the emulsions (Charm, 1962). The consistency index (K) is an indicator of the viscous nature of the system and was observed to be increased with the increase in homogenizing pressure, Furthermore, a decrease in consistency index (K) was observed with the increasing temperature, indicating a decrease in apparent viscosity at higher temperatures. 3.2. Eect on fat structure of coconut milk The eect of homogenizing pressure on fat structure of coconut milk were conducted using optical standard microscope (Fig. 2). It was found that the non homogenized sample had larger fat globule sizes than homogenized ones. During the homogenization, the high shear forces acted on dispersed phase to reduce droplet size (Floury et al., 2002). Small fat globule sizes were obtained at higher homogenizing pressures. Reduction in the fat particle diameters resulted in an increase in K value and thus improved the product stability (Gonzalez et al., 1990; Srithunma, 2002). When the homogenized coconut milk samples were subjected to heat treatments, small fat globules formed irregular rearrangement of aggregates. Naturally, coconut milk composes of fat globules surrounded by the aqueous protein solution (Gonzalez et al., 1990). Addition of emulsier and stabilizer helped in the stability of coconut milk by lowering the interfacial tension between two phases, therefore fat globules could disperse throughout the water phase. Fig. 3 exemplies the eect of sterilizing temperature on the structure of fat globule. When the samples were heated at high sterilizing tem-

perature, some heat labile proteins were destroyed (Seow & Gwee, 1997) and fat globules tended to form aggregates. Therefore, the emulsion system contained less suspended single fat globules to resist the ow. The micrographs supported the results from the rheological studies that decreasing in viscosity of heated treated homogenized coconut milk was caused from the change in microstructure. The droplet size distribution and mean droplet diameter were also determined as shown in Fig. 4 and Table 4. The patterns of the size distribution data were changed noticeably at higher heating temperature. The eect of homogenizing pressure on the droplet size was clearly seen as the data from dierent pressures were discrete from each other. Furthermore, new large droplets in the range of 10100 lm were detected which resulted in the increase of the mean droplet diameter obtained for all samples passing higher heating level. The results suggested that the stability of canned coconut milk was inuenced by both homogenizing pressure and sterilizing condition.

Table 4 Eect of homogenization pressure on fat particle diameter (Dm) of canned high fat coconut milk Temperature (C) 109.3 Homogenization pressure (MPa) 15 18 21 24 27 15 18 21 24 27 (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) (11/4) (14/4) (17/4) (20/4) (23/4) Fat particle diameter (Dm) SD (lm) 3.57 0.25 3.43 0.24 3.26 0.23 3.06 0.21 2.81 0.19 4.40 0.35 4.31 0.21 4.29 0.31 4.12 0.28 3.81 0.26 5.94 0.34 5.49 0.27 5.44 0.38 5.42 0.41 5.01 0.24

115.6

121.1

15(11/4) 18 (14/4) 21 (17/4) 24 (20/4) 27 (23/4)

Table 5 Eect of homogenizing pressure and sterilizing temperature on L/b values of high fat coconut milk Homogenizing pressure (MPa) Temperature 30 C L Non homogenization 15 (11/4) 18 (14/4) 21 (17/4) 24 (20/4) 27 (23/4) 77.92 79.35 79.52 79.96 80.47 80.49 b 4.85 4.30 4.29 4.25 4.26 4.26 L/b 16.07 18.44 18.51 18.78 18.88 18.96 109.3 C L 74.58 72.44 73.26 73.69 72.91 b 8.54 8.14 8.09 7.90 7.80 L/b 8.73 8.90 9.06 9.32 9.34 115.6 C L 73.54 71.55 70.87 72.02 71.88 b 6.42 6.18 6.07 6.05 6.01 L/b 11.49 11.58 11.68 11.90 11.95 121.1 C L 77.90 77.89 78.55 78.49 78.79 b 4.83 4.79 4.75 4.72 4.69 L/b 16.13 16.24 16.53 16.61 16.77

3.3. Eect on color of coconut milk The color changes of coconut milk as aected by homogenizing pressure and thermal processing were investigated and the color values were presented in terms of Hunter L/b (Table 5). It was found that L/b values of homogenized coconut milk were greater than that for fresh coconut milk and increased with increasing homogenizing pressure (P < 0.05). Smaller droplets were produced when the higher homogenizing pressures were applied. The reectance increased with increasing droplet concentration and decreasing droplet size (Chantrapornchai, Clydesdale, & McClements, 1999). This occurrence resulted in the higher lightness values (L). For the eect of thermal processing, lightness (L) of product at any sterilizing temperatures were not signicantly dierent while b values decreased with sterilizing temperature. Therefore, L/b value increased with increasing sterilizing temperature. In low acid food such coconut milk (pH about 6), non-enzymatic browning reaction occurred when high heating temperatures (>100 C) were applied (Ames & Hofmann, 2001). In this research, three levels of sterilizing temperature, i.e. 109.3, 115.6 and 121.1 C were chosen and the process time to approach F0 = 5 min were dierent (Table 1). The higher b values were found for the sample passing the thermal process at 115.6 C and 109.3 C, respectively. The reason was that heating at lower temperature had taken longer time to achieve F0 = 5 min. Therefore, there was longer period of time to permit the browning reaction to occur. This resulted in the signicant reduction in L/b value.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Thailand (BIOTEC). The authors wish to thank Adinop company for kindly providing the emulsifying agents (Montanox 60 and Montane 80). And the National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC) for allowing the use of the Mastersizer-S.

References
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4. Conclusions Following the power law model, coconut milk samples passing through a 2-stage homogenizer and heating process (sterilization) in the range of experimental conditions exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with the ow behavior index (n) between 0.719 and 0.971. Increasing homogenizing pressure caused a decrease of fat droplet size which resulted in an increase of apparent viscosity. However, heat treatment at higher temperature led to the aggregating of fat particle and this phenomenon caused the reduction of apparent viscosity. For optical property determination, Hunter L/b values of homogenized coconut milk were greater than that for fresh sample and the values increased with increasing homogenizing pressures. Comparing among commercial sterilizing conditions of study, heating at 121.1 C for 60 min provided an acceptable color comparing to fresh coconut milk.